Madrid Day 2 (Spain: Part III)

What the...

It's 12 August, 2023 and I haven't even gotten started, not really, with our second day of our 17 day journey across Spain. Hmmmmm.

I'm gonna drop it, I think. 

Well.

Okay. No. Here goes...

View from our Palacio balcony

We awakened in our lovely hotel and made our way to the hotel bar where we filled our plates with lovely food and sat at a lovely table. It took another day before we realized we could get breakfast to order, but honestly the buffet was quite, well, lovely.

We enjoyed a delicious breakfast, then met our first guide in the hotel lobby. Pablo was gracious, funny, and smart, and he immediately said he'd flipped our day (we had two tours with him that day) so that we were going to the Prado in the morning, not in the afternoon as our schedule predicted. The lines at the National Palace were overflowing with tourists and school groups and his experience told him this was the thing to do. I loved him already. I'm a fan of flexibility, and the wonders of the day proved him right. The Palace was only a few blocks from our hotel, and we passed it by for later, heading instead to the Prado. Indicative of Pablo's teacher mind-set (he has a masters degree in Art History), here is my first picture taken on our first guided tour in Spain:

Pablo's first pop quiz: "What kind of tree is this?"
Answer: 

If you will notice the severely trimmed older growth, it's the result of Storm Filomena, the disastrous snow storm at the break of 2021 which crippled the city with the biggest snowfall in over 50 years, resulting in over 150,000 trees being destroyed or severely damaged. Estimates were that over 450,000 more trees were damaged or killed in the surrounding woodlands, including the National Forest that snuggles up to the western boundaries of the city. Once Pablo had focused our attention to that, we saw evidences of it throughout the city. We continued to walk and chat, briefly and only briefly to discuss American politics and Spanish political divide, strikingly similar to ours with its ultra-conservatives and liberals/leftists. The players change but it really is all about money and power wherever you go, isn't it? The story of the current King Filipe VI, a powerful cultural icon but politically not so, and his dethroned father the former king, is just fascinating. Here's a good related article from BBC. Consider it a teaser. You're welcome.

Let's see. We wended our way through Madrid's streets, making our way to the Prado. Along the way we stopped at a hilltop park to view a panorama of the city to the west. Of course I had to try to capture it but the pano does not do justice to the vista of city and not-too-distant National Park.

I've already blogged about the Prado visit, but if you missed it, here. The time we spent there was focused and immersive and couldn't have been better. I can't imagine just buying a ticket and being overwhelmed by it all. Thank you, again, Pablo. 

Then there was that little happy accident where Velazquez's "Los Meninas" completely stole my focus and then again in the roomful of derivative paintings in the Picasso museum the next day, all inspired by that Velazquez. An epiphanous series of events.

One thing I neglected to mention in the earlier post was the final stop within the Prado. We had walked the museum in a focused way, and I really enjoyed watching the painters copying the masterpieces. Pablo told us they got a museum pass for something like two months and could store their work within in between visits to paint/study/copy. Here's one artist working on a reproduction of a big Rubens:

Now that's a fearless artist! Copying Rubens' "The Judgement of Paris" in the Prado. 

Finally we descended stairs to visit the Goya "Black Paintings" exhibit. I have no photos but this was another intensely moving experience for me, and the story behind them is another fantastic learning experience. I suggest you click on over to Wikipedia for that. Pablo related the story of Francisco Goya's embittered isolation in a country house and his use of the walls in the house for canvases upon which the near-deaf painter expressed just that: despair and embitterment. The story of the reclamation of these works of art is in itself a fascinating read. All 14 of them are available for viewing online at the above-mentioned Wikipedia article.  Here's the one that brought tears to my own eyes, but you may have a dark favorite of your own.

Goya: Dog

I know it's a dog. But there in the company of the other thirteen despairing images, it hurt in context.

We parted company with our guide and lunched in the square of a nearby neighborhood and had some good grub.

After lunch, we met back up with him outside our hotel for round two of the day. The Royal Palace:

The official website has this to say by way of introduction:

"The Royal Palace of Madrid is the largest in Western Europe and one of the largest in the world. With over 135,000 square metres and 3,418 rooms, it has witnessed centuries of Spanish history. It is one of the few official seat of a Head of State that is open to the public. Almost 2 million visitors come every year to discover its rooms, works of art and treasures that are unique in the world."

You know, I don't think I'll go into great detail about that tour, but it was, as expected, liberally described by Pablo as we toured, from the multitude of clocks, to the reappearance of Hercules statuary and other art featuring him in many of the rooms, to the giant painting of current King Felipe VI and the story behind his marriage to his wife, formerly a national news anchor. The official website is maybe a little clunky to navigate but it has very detailed information and images of the vast collection of historical objects in the building. Well worth the time for us. 

We bid farewell to Pablo, hit the hotel for a quick nap, arose and cabbed to our dinner reservation at Lobito De Mar, an upscale but casual fine dining experience and a project of famed chef Dani Garcia. I'll admit we may have been too tired to really enjoy that first epicurean stop, but it was fine, and I loved the foodery's commitment to the oceans of the world. We had some awesome shrimp on tableside-prepared guacamole, hake, a fish new to me, and I believe that's sea bass in the last shot. Here's a menu for your perusal.

And here's a quote from me, jotted down online while I was still attempting to keep up with notes on places visited on Google Maps: "Interesting small place with reservations, sat at a small 2-top, had hake for the first time. Good service, but I don't know, a little fussy and maybe I was not really caught up from flying. Sort of a fuzzy memory of not having enjoyed it as much as I perhaps should have."

Taking a pass on dessert, we caught another cab home. There are ~60,000 cabs in Madrid and it's really the way to go if you don't have to go far. Every single cab driver was nice and hospitable. Only once or twice in our cabbing experience did we feel we were taken circuitous routs to inflate the cost, but that may have been a reach since we didn't know the traffic in Madrid, which seems active pretty much all the time and is riddled with tiny tiny streets. 

I'll stop here, as my lovely daughter and her lovely husband are coming over in a few minutes so my lovely wife can join us out somewhere for a lovely dinner after her lovely day of work. Stay lovely and morrrrrrre later!